Preview: Chicago Symphony Orchestra

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Co-composer-in-residence Mark-Anthony Turnage takes the spotlight with the world premiere of his CSO commission, a piece about the city itself called “Chicago Remains,” suggesting the double meaning of the endurance of Chicago as well as the “remains” and legacy that it has and will leave behind. Influenced by the city’s architecture and the poetry of Carl Sandburg about Chicago, the work attempts to capture the city’s “optimistic grandeur and melancholy darkness.” Curiously, principal conductor Bernard Haitink conducted a Turnage work, “Some Days,” a decade ago, in his first concert with the CSO in two decades, so Haitink’s conducting of this world premiere is a reunion of sorts. The concert opens with the Mozart Symphony No. 25 in g minor, K. 183, known as the “little” g minor Mozart symphony to distinguish it from the more well-known Symphony No. 40, but its drama is such that there is nothing “little” about it: its opening movement served as the opening title sequence of Milos Forman’s film version of “Amadeus” while Salieri is taken through the streets of Vienna to a sanitarium after cutting his own throat. Emmanuel Ax, one of the most underrated pianists playing today, will perform the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with Haitiink and the CSO as the main work on the program, giving principal cellist John Sharp and principal horn Dale Clevenger memorable moments in the spotlight as well. (Dennis Polkow)
Thursday, October 25 at Symphony Center